Lady Gross: An Unschooling Journeyhttps://ladygross38506.wordpress.com
Perfecting tomorrow one unschooling moment at a timeSun, 18 Feb 2018 05:07:56 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://s2.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngLady Gross: An Unschooling Journeyhttps://ladygross38506.wordpress.com
St. Patrick’s Day Updatehttps://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/2014/03/15/st-patricks-day-update/
https://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/2014/03/15/st-patricks-day-update/#respondSat, 15 Mar 2014 13:52:31 +0000http://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/?p=25I have learned more about Ireland this week with the lads than I have in twenty something years!! Monday went well as we started our lapbooks and did some worksheets. We will be finishing up our lap books this weekend since we got a day or two behind this week due their dad being off of work. Our potatoes are growing in their jars and will be observed for the rest of the month. (Pictures will come soon). All we have left to do is finish our lap books and celebrate St. Patrick’s Day on Monday. This has been a fun unit and I am really enjoying the lap book part of it. I think I will use them more often in our studies!!

Check back Tuesday for a recap of our St. Patrick’s Day unit with pictures!!

Until next time followers, Blessed Be.

]]>https://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/2014/03/15/st-patricks-day-update/feed/0ladygross38506Money Managementhttps://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/2014/03/15/money-management/
https://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/2014/03/15/money-management/#respondSat, 15 Mar 2014 10:00:01 +0000http://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/?p=27My Grandma had two theories on money management. 1) Every penny makes a dollar and 2) you always need to save for a rainy day. Those two theories are what I try to live by today. I will be the first to admit though, I have never been the best with money. I didn’t really acquire the skills that I should have. I don’t want my kiddos to go through the same head aches that I have so I figured there is no better time to start money management skills than now.

I’ve compiled a few ideas on how to help your kids understand the value of a dollar and how to apply them to real life. I am also in the works of creating a Monopoly like game that will allow them to use skills like budgeting, saving and spending wisely. I will post that once I get all the details worked out.

Chore Lists & Allowances do work!!

The lads are really into Legos (see the Lego Category that I have for Co-Op Ideas and everything Lego related). The only downfall is that they are so expensive. So we’ve implemented a chore list with stars. X amount of stars and they get to choose their Lego set. They also have a variety of items to work towards and “pay” for. It helps them learn to save and to budget. Here is an example of what we have at our house.

The lads must choose whether or not they want to save for the big whopper of 64 stars or use them as they go. I let them decide. So far I have one saving his stars and one spending them like crazy. We’ll see how that goes when one gets a bike and the other has to return a Redbox movie.

Take them shopping

I always take the lads with me grocery shopping. Before hand we always compile our list and our budget. I let them know we have X amount for meat, vegetables, drinks, sweets, sides ect. Then we plan our menus and go shopping. I let them see how buying name brand sometimes isn’t always the best deal. I let them compare prices and guide them when making a decision between sour cream brands and chip brands.

Extra Chores

You shouldn’t get paid for cleaning your room or having to help with the dishes after you’ve eaten. But we have designed a method to pay them actual cash for doing extra things. For example they each earned $20 for raking and bagging up leaves in the entire yard. If they decide to go out and help pull weeds, helps with maintenance around the house, or anything that isn’t basic day to day requirements they can earn money. It shows them that working hard or working “over time” to get what they want is a good way to save money. Also allows them to pick and choose what they do to earn that extra money.

Accountability

One of the lads once wasted almost an entire bottle of body soap in the shower by pouring it down the drain. Yea? That’s cool. Now march your behind into your room and hand me $2 of YOUR money please. What an eye opener that was. What do you mean I have to pay for this? Well you wasted it, therefore you should have to pay me back so that I may replace it. An entire bottle of body soap was not wasted again let me tell you. Holding your little ones accountable will help show them that things cost money and you can’t just go and waste them.

I’m sure there are 100 other ways to teach kids money but these are the ones that I have done up to this point. I want to make sure my kiddos all understand that money has a value and you must work for it. Once they get older we will practice investing and saving. Hopefully by the time they are 18 they won’t have the issues that their dad and I have had.

Until next time followers, Blessed Be.

]]>https://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/2014/03/15/money-management/feed/0ladygross38506St. Patrick’s Day Unit: Monday Recaphttps://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/st-patricks-day-unit-monday-recap/
https://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/st-patricks-day-unit-monday-recap/#respondTue, 11 Mar 2014 14:17:47 +0000http://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/?p=21We started our St. Patrick’s Day Unit yesterday. I love lap books and so do the lads. They worked pretty hard on the start of it yesterday. The only thing we didn’t do was glue them on because I discovered that we didn’t have any glue sticks.

Today we are going to work on our Family Four Leap Clover and some more of our All About Ireland lap book. We may be adding another section for interesting facts.

Did you know:
Ireland is also known as the Republic of Ireland?
Halloween was derived from Samhain which was a Pagan/Celtic tradition that represented the end of the harvest?
The Titanic was made in Ireland?
There is no yes or no in the Irish language?
There isn’t a zip code used outside of Dublin?

I am learning just as much as the lads are!! I hope we keep up the momentum for today!!

Until next time, Blessed Be followers.

]]>https://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/st-patricks-day-unit-monday-recap/feed/0ladygross38506St. Patrick’s Dayhttps://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/st-patricks-day/
https://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/st-patricks-day/#respondMon, 10 Mar 2014 15:03:34 +0000http://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/?p=19A week from today we’ll be eating corn beef and cabbage (well maybe the lads won’t be eating the cabbage, they’re picky lol). I thought that this week we would be working our way towards St. Patrick’s Day each day with different projects each day in our lessons. I have to send a shout out to Teachers Pay Teachers for all the awesome printables that they have for free for St. Patrick’s Day. Go check it out.

Anyways, here’s the day by day outline of what we’ll be doing this week.

Monday March 10th

You can’t start the week learning about St. Patrick’s Day without going over a brief history of the holiday, the country and the culture. So we’ll be doing that first.
After our brief history lesson we’re going to start our St. Patrick’s Day lap book that will contain everything from culture to recipes to history to geography to religion/faith. Lap books are so much fun!! And this way the lads add something everyday and build up their knowledge. They’ll present their lap books on Monday March 17th. Today though, we’ll just put them together and get them organized. We’ll start adding stuff tomorrow.

Teachers Pay Teachers had a bunch of awesome printables as I said earlier. One of them was a pretty awesome ABC order packet with various activities to practice ABC order. Since the lads are a little weak in this department I figured it would be a good way to spice up the Monday english lesson

Tuesday March 11th

We’ll be working on our lap books again today. We’ll be adding family dynamics and culture today. This way they can compare how life is a bit different than what it is here.

Ireland is known for family crests and family honor. Today we will do our “Family Four Leaf Clover”. Pretty much it’s going to be a family crest but in the shape of a four leaf clover. This one should be fun and interesting!!

Graphing. Blah. But with Lucky Charms (or the generic, it doesn’t really matter) it should be a little more fun. Plus then you get to eat them afterwards and seriously, who doesn’t love marshmallows

Wednesday March 12th

Again, we’ll be adding more stuff to our lap book today. Irish food and holidays will be added today. I love Irish food so this should be a fun one. Maybe we’ll even make some of it for dinner

(If you can’t tell I love Teachers Pay Teachers) Little book about Ireland. This printable looks amazing and easy to put together. I’ll link it on Wednesday.

You can’t have St. Patrick’s Day without four leaf clovers!! So today we’ll be learning about four leaf clovers and how they are incorporated into Irish culture.

Thursday March 13th

Our lap books will be covering legends and geography today. Ireland is a beautiful beautiful country and we’ll be making sure that it is added. Maybe printing off some pictures? I wish a field trip would be affordable!!

Leprechauns!! Too bad they don’t like the horror movies because that would be a great activity for today. So instead we’ll be learning about the friendly ones that don’t want to rip you open for eating their coins. Rainbows, pots of gold and the history behind it. They’ll be able to tie in the four leaf clover legends and facts they learned earlier this week too.

Thursdays are typically Art day in our house right now. So keeping with the schedule and adding our theme we’ll be making paper plate Leprechauns with their photos in them (I probably won’t add the photos until Friday though). I love Pinterest, they have the best “why didn’t I think of that” ideas.

Friday March 14th

We should be done with our lap books by today. Today we’ll be adding some more history and the Celtic/Pagan faith to it as well. Most of ancient Ireland was Pagan in the old days and it’s always a good way to incorporate the history of Paganism. We will also cover how St. Patrick came to Ireland to preach about Christianity and spread the word. You can’t pick and choose your history so you have to incorporate it all in an unbiased way. You’ll learn that about me as this blog moves on

Science day is typically Fridays. We’ll be discussing why potatoes are always linked to the Irish and then we’ll be doing some fun science experiments with potatoes. Potato clocks are always a good one. It will be fun to see how it works. We’ll also be starting some projects that will take a little while to fully develop. The lads will be growing potato eyes and growing a potato from a scrap. These will be continued in further posts to watch their progress.

Luck of the Irish!! The lads will make a “LUCK” flap book today. It’ll be fun to have them put it together.

The Big Day!! Monday March 17th

IT’S HERE!!! St. Patrick’s Day. Our lap books should be ready to be presented, the lads should see some progress on their potatoes which they will record and of course corn beef and cabbage will go in the crock pot. I’m thinking of adding some green painted footprints to the toilet seat and throwing some green food coloring in the toilet just for some boy humor. Some games, activities and of course food will be done today. There will also be a fun writing assignment titled “who means more than a pot of gold.” We’ll review our family four leaf clover and generally have a good day. Of course, wear our green. I don’t like being pinched

Stay Tuned this week to follow our journey through Ireland as we study St. Patrick’s Day. Blessed Be followers!!

]]>https://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/st-patricks-day/feed/0ladygross38506States of Matter, Erosion & Weathering Projecthttps://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/statesofmattererosionandweatheringproject/
https://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/statesofmattererosionandweatheringproject/#respondFri, 07 Mar 2014 22:45:08 +0000http://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/?p=6Someone really made mother nature mad in Oklahoma this past week. We saw thunder, sleet, snow, ice, rain and hail all in about an hour last Sunday. We had snow on the ground for a few days afterwards. The lads were going crazy being cooped up in the house all day. Finally it warmed up enough to bundle up in our jackets and head outdoors to do some science.

Lord C is learning about states of matter in his science this week and we used the snow on the ground and a little game to develop his understanding a lot more. He took a chunk of snow and discussed how it was a solid. He was able to identify the properties and apply those to other solid objects. We then discussed the other states of matter and how they change from one to the other. It really clicked for him when he saw the snow melt into a liquid and today the snow we collected was gone from the cup and he explained in his own words how it went from liquid to gas. Safe to say he understands this topic fully. Thank you mother nature for the handouts

For the game that we did all you need is a stick and 2 or more people to play. Use the stick to draw a small circle (big enough for all of you to fit in but fit pretty close to each other). Then draw another circle around the first that allows you to move around a little more. Have everyone start in the smallest circle; the “solid” circle. Tell everyone to try to move around and have them talk about what’s going on. Is it easy? Is it hard? Are you bumping into people? Then ask everyone to take a step backwards into the next circle; the “liquid circle”. Again, have them move around and discuss what’s going on. Finally, ask everyone to go wherever the want. Discuss how much easier and more free they feel. At this point, they are gas. It was a good way to show the states of matter hands on and the lads enjoyed being able to bump into each other and run around the yard.

Our next project was a lot of fun. It got a little messy but that’s the best way to learn. Lord J is covering erosion and weathering in his science. He wasn’t really grasping the ideas with the hand outs that we had so I decided to use the nice day that we had to adventure outside and use the earth to show him instead.

Here’s what you need for this project:
1 cake pan
1-2 straws (depending on how many in your group)

Some mud & dirt from your yard. You can also add rocks, leaves, sticks whatever you want

something to sprinkler water onto the dirt (We used an old water jug and made holes in the lid, make sure you have about 1/2 gallon worth of water)

a chunk of ice

Something to prop up the cake pan about 1-3 inches (we used an old piece of drift wood we found in the yard)

Prep:
Have the youngin’s collect dirt and mud from your yard. Have them fill the cake pan about half way. Then have them make a mountain with the mud and dirt. Make sure you pack the mountain pretty tight but also leave some loose dirt around the mountain and the base. Here’s what ours looked like once we were done.

Wind:
Wind is one way that erosion and weathering occurs. But it takes a long time for it to show any real progress. To show how long it takes have each lad/lass take a straw and blow through it towards the mountain. Have them blow towards the base as well. While they are doing this have them talk about which one is easier; the packed dirt mountain or the loose dirt.

Rain & Flooding:
Rain and flooding is another great way for mother nature to change the shape of the land forms in an area. Have each lad/lass use the container of water with the holes in the lid and gently pour the water on the mountain. Instruct the lads/lasses to observe how the mountain looks before the rain starts and then how it looks afterwards. Ask them if there are any differences in the pan and if there are what are they? Did the dirt from the mountain move to the part of the pan where there wasn’t any dirt before? Then, take the lid off the water container and have them pour gently the water onto the mountain. Again, have them observe what the cake pan mountain looked like before and what it looks like afterwards. Start a discussion on how this would affect plant, animal and human life.

Waves:
By this point you should have about 1/2 gallon of water in the cake pan. Prop the cake pan up with what you are going to use to prop it up. Have the lad/lass make waves by gently lifting up the cake pan and putting it back down. Have them observe what is happening and ask them if the water is changing the mountain at all. Start a discussion on how plants, animals and people would have to adjust to live in this type of environment.

Glacier Movement:We did this one last with what was left from our mountain. Take the block of ice (we used tightly packed snow/ice from the ground since there was still a lot of it around) and put it on top of your mountain. Gently push down on it and slowly slide it down the mountain towards your water. Open a discussion about how slow glaciers move but how much they change the land around them. Once you get to the “ocean” part of your cake pan have the lad/lass talk about how much different the mountain looks and why the ice was able to do that.

Lord J & C really loved this project and were able to grasp the concepts pretty good. We’ll probably do a couple more projects later on this spring to show it again but for now, mother natures vengeance on Oklahoma served us well

]]>https://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/statesofmattererosionandweatheringproject/feed/0ladygross385061003550_544800625633920_1781448080_n1959636_544800648967251_252398132_n10014608_544800338967282_114481245_n1462852_544800315633951_1765915400_n1975157_544800402300609_228806199_n1795535_544800378967278_948958511_n1898072_544800298967286_1732598743_nWelcome!!https://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/welcome/
https://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/welcome/#respondFri, 07 Mar 2014 21:46:12 +0000http://ladygross38506.wordpress.com/?p=4Let me introduce myself. I am Lady Gross. I am the mother of three little lads and a beautiful little lass. We are a home/un schooling family and I plan on using this blog to share our journey through education, learning and life in general. I will also post some crafting ideas and the occasional recipe. I welcome you to my blog
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